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Helloooeeee guys! Long time no see? That was what I was thinking too! Since I had become so uncreative and lazy nowadays, a friend of mine and I decided to bring back our creativity by writing a short story each. And this was my attempt at returning as a writer (though it didn’t work out that well).. Anyway, enjoy the story. 🙂

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Walking through the lavishly paved road, I came to a halt where a tiny street intersected.

This was the place.

I stood there, watching people hurry to work; the cars on the road honked none too gently, and the impatient bikes made their way through the gaps in between.
The sun shone brightly upon the land beneath, and I raised my face, as though I could feel the vitamin D seep through my skin.

It was a busy day. Little girls with tiny gowns stood waiting for their school bus to pick them up. I stood there still, waiting.

What was I waiting for?

I did not know.

In fact, I did not know anything. I had been coming to this place everyday since I woke up all alone in that dirty place, knowing I’d get some clue about something I might need from my old life.

I didn’t even remember who I was.

I had found my phone, and in that, there was a reminder.. reminding me to visit that place everyday.

Why would I have visited that place everyday? It was just an ordinary road anyway.

But something inside me told me it wasn’t.

When I woke up from oblivion a few days ago, I had found myself in a dirty place, fully beaten up; beside me were someone’s divorce papers – perhaps they were mine; I had also found a bag full of money, enough to last a lifetime. If I really wanted, I could’ve started a new life; gotten all that I needed.

But some part of my brain disagreed. It told me there was something that I needed much more than money.

Just then, a little girl came down the cramped lane and walked towards her friend. Her skin was pale, yet healthy. Her eyes, innocent.

And those wide-open eyes were looking for something. She looked at the tree beside her, then at the traffic, and then…

At me.

When those tiny eyes met mine, she froze. So did I.

And with that one look at her, I knew. She was everything I needed.

I even realized why I would want to come here everyday. Though I didn’t remember her, didn’t recognise who she was, I knew she was the one for whom I had been living.

Franesca’s grasp tightened over her Glock. Her hand quivered, as she inched it towards the stranger. “Who are you?”

“Not your business,” the man replied curtly.

His ominous eyes were fixed on hers, probing the depths of her souls for answers she didn’t know. Then, in a swift move, he took out his Beretta and pointed it to her head.

Franesca stifled a gasp.

“Listen,” he said, snatching the gun from her hand and pocketing it, “this is a bad time for you to test my patience. Where is the key?”

Mr. Felton had told her that the key would be in closet number five. And Franesca knew too well what that closet contained – ammo. “Tell me who you are!”

By then, the man had lost all patience. “Look, woman. I’ll ask you one thing.

Do you want to stay alive?”

At his death glare, Franesca’s survival instincts kicked in and she nodded involuntarily.

“Good. Then give me the key.”

The key.

A distant voice rang in Franesca’s head: ‘The moment a man will come asking for a key, will be themoment, my child. Do not let it go.’ It was the prophecy-teller she so believed in.

The time had come. Franesca slowly pressed a button at her belt and looked at the man in the eye. “Wait a moment, then.” She knew that she had to activate the bomb right away. Else, this man would bomb an entire city… or so her prophecy-teller had told her.

“Bring it right away!”

“No, we are going elsewhere.” She had already executed the suicide attack.

Karen sighed. She didn’t have the patience anymore to face the empty home that greeted her with nothingness every day, as her step-parents worked till late nights and scurried away to their offices early in the mornings. She didn’t even have the time to say a proper ‘hello’ to them, considering their never being at home most of the time.

Hitching her schoolbag over her back, and sighing once again, Karen hurried forward, away to the outskirts of town. She was free at last – free from the shackles of mockery that her friends failed not to bind her with and a prison of a school.

Karen glanced sideways on the road, at a trio who licked their ice-creams, laughter booming from within each of them as an unsaid private joke was being enjoyed – and Karen smiled – this was a first in many months, since the merry laughter of the trio was not directed at her; this was her only reason to smile.

Of course, she thought. The only cause of laughter among the people couldn’t be the mockery of her. There had to be other genuine reasons to laugh, too. But the constant ridicule that she received from her schoolmates made her think that whenever someone burst out into laughter, it was because of her clumsiness, or any other trait pertaining to her. It had to always be her.

But today, as she saw the harmless laughter bubbling up from the adolescents, she gathered up her courage and walked up to them.
The only boy in the little group looked up at her and smiled. Karen’s heart beat fast, wanting to get lost in the moment forever. But alas, that moment could not last.

“Who are you?” he had asked her.

Someone had just spoken something inoffensive to her.

Karen simply grinned at the boy.

“Girl. Stop drooling at my boyfriend.” The girl standing to his left snapped at her.

Boyfriend?

It was a rich word that Karen could not quite afford into her vocabulary. Boyfriends, shopping, malls, fun, parties, night-outs, sleepovers, gossip, friends, dates, prom – none of these were in the affordable side of Karen’s boundary.

Should she even be denied of hospitality?

She looked up at the girl, perplexed. “I am sorry.” At the end of the day, she had ended up using the same phrase she would have used against her bullies at school; the outskirts of town was certainly not worth escaping into.
She then dared a look into the depths of the boy’s fathomless eyes. They were soft and kind, and she couldn’t see any ill will there, but she certainly did in those of the girl beside him.

His gaze, in return, pierced directly into her soul, ripping it apart, tearing it to shreds, setting it on fire, reducing it to ashes and then left her eyes abruptly without even a feeling of remorse. Ever-so-innocently.

The two girls beside him seemed oblivious to the ardent gaze exchange that he had just had with Karen. Within seconds, the color of his eyes drained, and he returned to his former self. “Who are you?” he repeated, this time, irritation evident in his voice. “What do you want?”

If falling in love at the first gaze was plausible, then Karen had just experienced that. Her eyes peered into the depths of his soul again through his eyes, seeking the warmth and kindness that oozed out towards her that he had painfully suppressed moments ago.

“Wherever has it gone?” she whispered unconsciously, earning odd looks from three pairs of eyes.

The boy surely thought that she was a freak – just like the others did. She willed him not to look oblivious to what she was searching for, but he remained that way. He knew not what she had been searching for.
Even she did not know what she had been seeking all these days, unless she had found it – love.

A lone voice rang clearly in her head, clear as a bell: “Karen, my baby!” It was that of her mother.

Eyes brimming with moist, she turned away and walked back the way she came, while the salty beads of tears rolled down her cheeks in abundant quantities. Her feet took her to a deserted alleyway, where she broke down and cried until her eyes were dehydrated of moisture.